Andy Warhol At The Ashmolean: Norman Rosenthal Discusses The Late Pop Art Great

Artlyst has attended the new Norman Rosenthal-curated exhibition of works by Andy Warhol from the very personal Hall Collection, on show at the Ashmolean. This exhibition is the latest in a number of Rosenthal-curated shows from the collection to take place at the renowned institution in collaboration with the Hall Art Foundation. The show includes over 100 paintings, sculptures, screen prints and drawings from the collection exhibited alongside loans of the artist’s films from The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.

Image: The American Man (Portrait Of Watson Powell), 1964. Andy Warhol: Works from the Hall Art Foundation, Ashmolean Museum. Photo: P A Black © Artlyst 2016.

The show opens with Warhol’s early Pop portraits, and includes works from key series such as Flowers and Brillo Soap Pads Box; a group of artists’ portraits which features Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist and Frank Stella; as well as some of Warhol’s earliest experiments in screen print portraits. The centre of the exhibition contains a display of Warhol’s commissioned portraits spanning the 1970s right up to the year before his death. The group features performers, socialites and politicians including the singer and songwriter, Paul Anka; American celebrities, Maria Shriver and Pia Zadora; the Princess of Iran; and even the West German Chancellor, Willy Brandt sits next to the iconic images of Joseph Beuys.

Image: Jed Johnson, 1973. Andy Warhol: Works from the Hall Art Foundation, Ashmolean Museum. Photo: P A Black © Artlyst 2016.

Sir Norman Rosenthal was kind enough to give Artlyst a tour of this very personal collection of the Pop Art master’s work. Rosenthal, former exhibitions secretary of the Royal Academy reminisced about the relationship between Warhol and the German shamanistic great Joseph Beuys, around the time of the Pop artist’s ghostly portraits, and reflected on Warhol’s entire career, from iconic works of the ‘60s to the Pop artist’s last decade.

About the Hall Art Foundation:

The Hall Art Foundation was founded in 2007 and makes available postwar and contemporary art works from its own collection and that of Andrew and Christine Hall for the enjoyment and education of the public. Together, the Hall and Hall Art Foundation collections comprise some 5,000 works by several hundred artists including Richard Artschwager, Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Olafur Eliasson, Eric Fischl, Joerg Immendorff, Anselm Kiefer, Malcolm Morley, A. R. Penck, Julian Schnabel, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol and Franz West.

In 2013, the Hall Art Foundation entered into a partnership with the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford, England to present a series of exhibitions of contemporary and postwar art curated by Sir Norman Rosenthal.

Words: Paul Black. Audio: Sir Norman Rosenthal. Photos: P A Black © Artlyst 2016.

Andy Warhol: Works from the Hall Art Foundation – Ashmolean Museum, Oxford – until 15 May 2016.

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